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And Julia's1 beauty was the court's proud theme!

A beauty, which 'rapt poesy would laud,

Which many a far-fam'd painter, too, had strove

In vain to rival by his mimic art;

So sculpture, with her thousand antique moulds,
Most fruitlessly did labour to conceive,

A form so faultless, or so fine a face,
As those of all-subduing Julia!

Yet e'en this faultless form this angel mien,
Were but subservient to the nobler charms,
Of modest worth and rare accomplishment.
Enamour'd of this artless innocent,

Yet more enamour'd of the mighty wealth,

Which rumour gave her,-forth came Frankenstein 2,

The young, the bold, the confident, the vain;

Who woo'd and won, and sought at length to bring

The blushing rose to his domestic bower ;

But he was hollow, heartless, and untrue,
And, like a base-born, calculating knave,

Soon left the flower to lose its vernal bloom,
To droop, and, ere the summer breeze had blown,

1 The sister of Adelaide.

2 For many romantic and highly interesting tales connected with the Rhine, the reader is referred to a work entitled "Traditions populaires du Rhin." (Heidelberg.)

To pine and die, torn from the parent stalk !—
Thus Adelaide again was doom'd to mourn.
A grief e'en far more poignant than the last,
As she had fondly treasur'd the sweet hope
That in her Julia she should long be blest!
But what, alas! was Adelaide's wild woe,
While every eye yet stream'd, each bosom heav'd,
While, ere the grave had clos'd upon the corse
Of her lov'd Julia,-straight was it announc'd
That Weiland' was no more,-the Villain fled.
Prompt to avenge an injur'd sister's wrongs,
The ardent youth had fought and bravely fallen.
And left it to the moralist to say,

How sink the just! Why triumph's treachery?
Now all was misery, where so late had reign'd,
God knows nor peace, nor happiness, nor joy;
But still that calm resignment to the will
Of the Almighty.-Rent were the jetty locks
Of Adelaide! The frantic mother, too,
Who, till that moment had so firmly brav'd
The loss of all most dear to her on earth,
Had prov'd in truth the strong sustaining stem,
Round which her darling tendril had entwin'd,

1 The brother of Adelaide.

Heart-stricken, sank, and fell a lifeless clod
Upon the bleeding body of her boy!

Snatch me a plume from out the raven's wing,
Which nightly croaks upon the cypress bough,
That shades th' untimely tomb of murder'd Weiland!
But where's the hand to guide it? how pourtray
The phrenzied eye of wretched Adelaide ?

As on the scene of horror she did gaze,

The while fell anguish shook her trembling frame, And her rack'd bosom heav'd that bursting sigh. Which issues only from a breaking heart.

In shatter'd garb, the ghost of what she was,

Her long dark hair, the sport of every

wind;

The hapless maiden may be frequent seen,

What time the glooms of eve come deepening on,
Or by the surge-beat shore, or dingy dell;
Or wayward winding through the winter's blast,
Almost as pale, as desolate, as cold,

As the storm-shaken, kindred, frozen leaves,
Which crackle 'neath that light aerial tread,
That late had grac'd the palace of a king!
And, as the wayworn passenger will pause,
And kindly question the lone wanderer,

She, shivering, sighs, and hastening past betrays,
The wreck of all, which once so brightly shone.

For others' ills she said there was a balm,

Some sweet oblivious essence, which the hand
Of Time could lay upon the anguish'd heart—

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AND must, then, that sweet blooming beautiful flower, Now the pride and the boast of our grove,

So soon be transferred to some far distant bower,

Or give grace to some stranger alcove?

II.

Just op'd from the bud, scarce expanded the leaves,
Breathing fragrance and joy through the vale;

Not a myrtle so jealous, but owns and believes,
"Tis the fairest that flaunts in the gale.

III.

What babarous hand then shall insolent dare,

E'er to tear this

young

tendril away,

1 An appellation given to a young lady by her intimate friends.

To bear it so far from so genial an air,

Or so rudely to risk a decay?

IV.

Let others go rove from the haunts where they grew, They are rough, and require not the shade;

But stay, lovely flower, where you first sipp'd the dew, And give life and delight to the glade!

V.

With a fostering hand from each ill-boding blight,

Shall I guard thy soft elegant form :

Avert the bleak blast, the chill damps of the night,

And will shelter thee safe from the storm.

VI.

Now my eyes sure beguile me, or else I behold,
How the blood quickly thrills at my heart!
Oh! say, 'tis no dew-drop condens'd by the cold,
But a tear of regret that we part !

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